


My PLL thoughts, faves, etc.

by luvtheheaven



Series: Metas I've Written (Various Fandoms) [9]
Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: Meta, Other, Personal thoughts in general, Shipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 17:10:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5878954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvtheheaven/pseuds/luvtheheaven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new fan discusses her thoughts, shipping preferences, first reactions, etc.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My PLL thoughts, faves, etc.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to my tumblr, here: <http://luvtheheaven.tumblr.com/post/131419646622/my-pll-thoughts-faves-etc> back on October 18th. I realized now it was probably a meta essay I'd enjoy sharing on this site too... so... yeah. :P Enjoy.

So I finished binge-watching all of _Pretty Little Liars_.

Years ago I tried to give the pilot a chance, thinking I would enjoy the show since all my vidder friends who knew it thought I would. I was intrigued, SO intrigued, by Aria/Ezra from fanvideos... but when I finally saw the pilot I hated it a surprising amount, and gave up on the show for a while. I did watch 1x02's Aria/Ezra scenes though, before completely giving up. Then I kept seeing people vidding Aria/Ezra so I ended up Googling what episode Aria's parents find out about them and starting the show with that episode. I watched till almost the end of season 2, I had finally gotten kind of hooked on the plot and all the characters, it was fairly compelling, but ultimately I wasn't fully sucked in, likely because I hadn't watched from the beginning. I [made a Holden/Aria vid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnzw4_AiBok) after I searched imdb and realized I'd seen all of Holden's episodes. (Actually he does appear once in season 3 so I downloaded that ep and scanned it to check but he never interacted with Aria so yeah, season 2 was everything.)

But then I gave up on the show for a long while, intending to get back to it eventually.

After a while, Emily/Alison became a ship on the show, a real, popular one, and I saw a lot of posts on my tumblr feed... saw people vidding them in [the uniquecreationsprodz open collab group I co-run](https://www.youtube.com/user/uniquecreationsprodz/videos), etc. being a sucker for femslash I was growing more and more curious all the while. I of course also saw some Caleb/Hanna and Spencer/Toby stuff being vidded... sometimes Hanna/Ashley and Ella/Aria for [my Mother's Day collabs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCvlQlwYByA)...

Anyway, I eventually gave it another chance, and when I saw the pilot again, I liked it a lot more, and actually saw a lot of similarities with it to the _Veronica Mars_ pilot. To me, it wasn't quite as good, but the format was similar with so many flashbacks and a lot of backstory to establish... and the whole show based off of a mysteriously murdered best friend where they need to figure out who did it was very similar.

Anyway, soon enough I got very hooked. I think by episode 3 or 4 it was starting to get better and I really fell hard for the show as a whole.

What originally drew me into the show was Aria/Ezra, especially everything about Lucy Hale - I also loved her outside of PLL sort of, just loved the characters I saw her play elsewhere and when she hosted the Teen Choice Awards and stuff... and how Aria's style/fashion was a thing to be admired and idk. So I was surprised when ultimately, I didn't support them as a ship. I don't really like the whole teacher/student thing in the end, how the show paints it as true love before they've even gotten to know each other, etc. Their scenes, especially in season 1, can be so beautifully shot, and they are very beautiful people. So I can see how the fanvideos with that cinematography might have drawn me in.

I also was surprised, once I got to the later seasons, at how few scenes Emily & Alison shared. How despite how much so many people loved them... idk. It was just less than I expected. I expected them to be more like Emily's previous ships on the show.

Oddly, the truth is I don't feel passionately about any romantic OTPs on this show. If I _had to_ pick OTPs, they'd probably be Toby/Spencer and Emily/Alison tied in first place because idk, I love all 4 characters involved in those ships passionately and think these two ships could work together. I was surprised by how much I grew to feel for Alison once she came back from the dead. I was surprised to find Emily and Spencer tied as my favorites of the 4 main liars. I also don't mind other ships, as long as they're not obviously-not-supposed-to-be-shipped because of explicit abusiveness like Zack/Hanna, Ashley/Wilden, Toby/Jenna or even the now incestuous Jason/Cece... in fact I don't think there are any canon ships I would refuse to vid, or read fanfiction about, etc (but I definitely don't ship Emily with any boys, so if you think Emily/Toby is canon as a romance, then no, not going to happen). After Toby/Spencer and Emily/Alison, I also really liked Wren/Spencer, Jason/Aria... Aria/that guy she met on her college tour, even Mike/Mona, and Ashley/Byron. I don't know. I also like all of the guys Hanna's flirted with/dated, including of course Caleb, and I'm just not that passionate about her ships, I don't know why, but they can still be sweet.

Really, though, what I love most about the show are the friendships, the complex family dynamics, and the characters themselves, regardless of ships. I love how all 5 of the main girls have two parents and we got to get to know all of them, and so far only one of them is dead. I love how three of the five girls have siblings, over half of them!, and how different all of those sibling dynamics are. Like Elena/Jeremy on TVD, my relationship with my little brother is somewhat similar to Aria/Mike. That leads me to _really_ loving Mike/Aria. I'm impressed by HOW MANY characters are established over the course of the series.

So now you know me and my tastes on PLL, which is literally a brand new fandom for me and at the moment I'm obsessed with it. :P

**Author's Note:**

> Bonus: For more meta I've written, check out: [http://luvtheheaven.tumblr.com/tagged/pretty+little+liars+meta ](http://luvtheheaven.tumblr.com/tagged/pretty+little+liars+meta)


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